So where to start, ah the face of youth. I had written a piece "advising" Kenny to give the kids a chance and named a few names. It has been a pleasure to see some of those youngsters get a chance; but are they being fast tracked and mismanaged?
A lot has been said about the average age of the team being the youngest around. Not very many teams can give three teenagers Premiership debuts in a single season not to talk about starting back-to-back Prem games. A combination of injuries and a new manager's preference for players with "hunger" has seen these teens emerge as regulars.
Much credit has to be given to Rafa Benitez for identifying these youngsters and bringing them to the club. He laid the foundation for LFC to nurture such talents and and aided in their development. While Brendan should get the praise for blooding them, Rafa deserves kudos as well. One of Rafa's philosophies was for the reserves and academy sides to play the same formation as the first team. This provided a consistent style of play across all the club and meant that if a player got promoted to the senior team, he already had a basic idea of the team's style of played and could easily fit in.
It's one thing to play youngsters in the Capital One cup, maybe even the Europa league but to have inexperienced and untested players compete in the bread and butter Prem is another thing. How do these youngsters deal with the pressure, especially for a club like LFC with great expectations?
Will this lead to player burnout or will this accelerate their development? Only time will tell but clearly a lot of fans are excited by the prospect of seeing the next Owen, Fowler or McManaman.
Personally, I think there needs to be a balance, some form of gradual introduction. For every Fowler or Owen, there's a Craig Lindfield or Kristian Nemeth. I would have liked to see these youngsters get confidence and experience via the cups, maybe a few cameo appearances in the Prem rather than become mainstays in the debut season. I still scratch my head at how Jerome Sinclair got to play for the first team before Michael Ngoo. There may be a few exceptions to this idea, Sterling scored his first Prem goal (first competitive goal for the club really) against Reading and has looked the part of a natural born Prem player. It will be wrong to expect him to score every week or bear the burden of being one of the main creative sparks for the team. Yes, he could offer something different, something fresh that occasionally sparks the team but the likes of Suarez and Stevie G still have to be the go-to guys. Only time will tell if BR is desperate or just a genius with this youthful experiment.
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